Queen's Play - Dorothy Dunnett [107]
All these were in d’Aubigny’s power to give, but all Stewart had received so far was money, and that sparingly. And now the conceited fool seemed to be indicating—but could not be indicating—that he had no further use for Stewart’s special services, and that he was turning him off to some routine duty abroad.
Lantern jaw jutting, Stewart stated his case. ‘I’ve already been to Ireland, your lordship. I understood I was to assist you for the whole of the Irishmen’s visit. I believe that so far I’ve given satisfaction.’
A buckle of his cuirass had come undone, and his hair needed cutting. Noting these things irritably, ‘Do you?’ said d’Aubigny. You botched their arrival at Dieppe. You botched one of them at Rouen. You let O’LiamRoe’s dog run wild for some petty purpose of your own, and made a thorough fool of yourself falling off your horse like a fisherman and bolting next down a rabbit hole.’ He yawned. The couchée had been long and boring last night. ‘It’s my own fault ultimately, I suppose. For this kind of work you need a touch of breeding, a little finesse. You will feel happier, I’m sure, with more familiar tasks. When O’Connor comes, I shall see to him myself. One of the men—perhaps Cholet—will help.’
He was turning him off. And Stewart suddenly thought he saw why. In ugly patches, the angry blood stained the Archer’s gaunt face and neck, and turned his ears scarlet. ‘I’ve noticed you can hardly bear to be civil since we won yon night steeplechase. It’s hardly my fault he chose me to run.… And remember this, my lord. The name Robin Stewart means something to the King and his courtiers now.’
Opposite, the handsome, thick-skinned face was merely contemptuous. ‘More than d’Aubigny, do you think? One more word out of turn, Stewart, and I’ll be the first, believe me, to put it to the test. Threats to a friend of the King in this land come very near treason, you know.’
It was not the insubordination that made d’Aubigny’s hand shake on the onyx inkwell before him; it was the crude mirror held up to his bright-eyed stalking of Thady Boy Ballagh. That Stewart should regard himself as a rival had never entered his head, and he resented the intrusion of brutish feet in the precious gardens of his conoisseurship.
He stood up, shuddering a little in his displeasure. ‘There is no point in searching out your weaknesses, Stewart; we are both, I am sure, quite aware of them. You have done the best that you can, and I am grateful. But you should be content now with the duties laid upon you. You will not find me ungenerous.’ Bending, he drew from his desk a hide bag and laid it, clinking, between them. ‘That will, perhaps, enable you to buy some aqua vitae or pleasant evenings with your friends in Ireland.’
Years of training, of poverty and repression had stolen the secret of spontaneous anger from Stewart, leaving him without the courage even now to fling his career in the other man’s face. But something newly nurtured within him baulked at walking to the table and picking up that limp rawhide bag. ‘Keep it,’ he said shortly. ‘And buy a new inkwell with it for yourself. You’ve gey near cracked yon one in two, playing Almighty God in your fancy new necklaces. I’ll go to Ireland. Cock’s blood, I will. And,’ said Robin Stewart furiously, producing the worst threat he could think of, and hitting with the the only weapon he possessed at Lord d’Aubigny’s indifference and complacency, ‘And I’ll take Ballagh back with me.’
It was a boast he had hardly hoped to realize. But Thady Boy had looked at him, as narrowly as he could out of eyes that did not focus very well, and said that he was beginning to think the Court of France was overrated, himself, and that he would consider it.
He had had, it was clear, no breakfast apart from some strong wine before the day’s sport; and was unlikely to bother with supper. Stewart, bitterly aware of the amusement roused by his missionary